


I'll make the world safe and sound for you

by Yowzahhowzah



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s06e07 A Good Man Goes to War, Father-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Daughter Relationship, and I'm a sucker for father-daughter relationships so, i feel like these fics are too rare, it will rip your heart apart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:18:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5861209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yowzahhowzah/pseuds/Yowzahhowzah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing she remembers hearing is how heroic her father was.</p>
<p>"What you are going to be, Melody is very, very brave. But not as brave as they'll have to be. Because there's someone coming. I don't know where he is, or what he's doing, but trust me, he's on his way.”</p>
<p>Her mother told her with such conviction and such trust in her eyes that she knew she couldn’t be wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll make the world safe and sound for you

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry guys, this will be very very sad :(((((((
> 
> I love fics exploring father-daughter relationships, but I feel like there aren't enough of them, so I wrote one myself.
> 
> Title from - drum roll please! Hamilton the Musical. 
> 
> As if you didn't already know.

The first thing she remembers hearing is how heroic her father was.

"What you are going to be, Melody is very, very brave. But not as brave as they'll have to be. Because there's someone coming. I don't know where he is, or what he's doing, but trust me, he's on his way.”

Her mother told her with such conviction and such trust in her eyes that she knew she couldn’t be wrong.

"There's a man who's never going to let us down, and not even an army can get in the way.”

As the eye-patch lady stalked closer, with her hands held wide open, like the mouth of the monster, ready to chomp her apart.

 

_Nothing_ like her mother’s embrace.

 

"He's the last of his kind. He looks young, but he's lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. And wherever they take you, Melody, however scared you are, I promise you, you will never be alone. Because this man is your father."

She feels the uneasiness in the room, smells it in the air, feels the tenseness in her mother’s arms, and she _knows_ something isn’t right.

"He has a name, but the people of our world know him better-“

The eye-patch lady gives a smile that resembles a shark and her eyes dart to her as if she was trying to tell her mother a message with her one, lonesome eye. Her gaze is cold and heartless. She feels shivers down her spine.

 

“- As the Last Centurion.”

 

She is torn between both women, the mean lady forcing her mother to loosen her grasp on her, even if she feels her vice-like grip on the swaddle that’s enveloping her. her mother screams and cries and fights as her fingers slip away from the cloth, and she is in the hands of the mean lady. The mean lady looks down at her with a predatory glance, as if she was the prey on the dinner menu. Her grasp is too tight, uncomfortable, nothing like her mother’s gentle embrace or her firm hold of her. Her mother’s firm hold felt like she was defending a priceless diamond. The lady’s tight grasp felt like a thief guarding the diamond that she stole.

The door closes behind the lady with a “swoosh” and as they close she sees her mother’s tear stricken face clamped in the middle of black gunned men, as she made the futile attempt of getting her back, her hands outreached between the barricade of men, her mouth shaking and screaming.

 

The lady is taking her somewhere, but she knows it’s not somewhere good. So, she closes her eyes and dreams of her heroic father, and hangs on to the hope that he will save them. _Just like mummy said._

 

-

 

She remembers waking up in darkness. Pitch black. And being so, so scared. Whatever she is in, it’s rocking and shaking, and she doesn’t like it.

 

Then, suddenly, there is a large commotion outside, shouts and screams muffled by her pitch black box and it is shaking more violently than ever, and she wants to cry to tell them to stop, and that she’s scared and lost and she wants her mummy and -

 

A blazing light shines on her.

 

She squints her eyes. The outside world is too bright, too noisy for a child just a few hours old.

 

Suddenly, a man comes into view and shields her from the bright light. He has soft and gentle eyes that reminds her of her mother, a nose so large that it might just hurt someone. He picks her up, his hands big and warm, and she feels protected and loved, even though she’s just seen this stranger for the first time in her life.

He cradles her against his chestplate, which is metallic and cold, but she can still feel the thumping of his hearts, erratic and ecstatic, like it’s about to burst with joy and happiness. She looks up at his eyes, and they are now red rimmed and glassy, biting his thin lips as if to contain his joy from overflowing. She wants to tell him not to cry, because she’s safe and happy, and crying means you’re sad or scared or you need your diaper changed.

_“Hello Melody.”_ The stranger finally speaks but his voice is hoarse and cracked, as if he can’t quite speak the words.

He rubs her cheeks with his large calloused fingers with such reverence it feels soft to her. He laughs in disbelief and as his eyes crinkle from his laughter, tears start rolling down his cheeks.

 

“I’m your father.”

 

_Oh._

 

_So that’s him_.

 

Mummy was right. He _did_ come to save her, like a prince in shining armour (or a centurion in Roman armour).

She giggles and throws her arms in the air because she’s safe now and no more creepy eye-patch lady would take her away from her mummy again.

 

Because _daddy won’t let her_.

 

He laughs with her, his eyes softening as he looks into her eyes. He feels softer, cozier than when he first picked her up, less nervous, less tense, less guarded.

He kisses her forehead and she knows, starting from now on and forever, daddy will _always_ come for her.

 

-

 

Guns are fired and there is ominous marching in the distance and she feels scared again. But less scared because now her mother is cradling her tightly to her chest, as if she would slip through her fingers if she didn’t hold onto her tightly enough. Daddy comes back and speaks to mummy, she can hear the panic and fear in his voice, but also his determination and his fierce love for both mummy and her. He kisses the back of her head, his lips soft and gentle and the kiss full of love and reverence, then he leaves, while mummy and her sit behind a wooden crate, staying away from the gunfire.

She sees the fierce battle going on behind them and she sees the blood and the unmoving bodies on the floor and it’s too loud and scary and she needs to tell them to stop again. She blares her lungs out. She doesn’t want to see fighting, she just wants to be in her parents’ embrace and -

The eye-patch lady is in front of her again, but just her head through a window and she’s floating in mid-air, and she doesn’t understand how that works, but she’s so close and she’s scared that she’ll get her again, so she cries louder, hoping that mummy can defend her from the lady who is now eyeing her with a smug look on her face, as if she had already won the battle, but that’s not possible because the battle is happening just beyond the crates and she sees her father valiantly defending all who dare try to get their way to her. Mummy just bounces her in her arms and pats her back in an attempt to stop her from crying, but she doesn’t understand, she _needs_ to make her see that the eye-patch lady is out here to get her again and -

“Wakey, wakey!” Her eyes twinkle with malevolent intent, and she feels a tingling sensation throughout her body, she feels her mother’s grip loosening, but _that’s not possible_ because she’s right here, gripping to her like a lifeline, _but yet she’s falling and melting and -_

 

-

 

She is awaken by the sound of the never-ending storm outside the orphanage, she pushes away her covers and looks out of the window just next to her bed. The outside is just as loud and gloomy as ever, raindrops dripping onto the glass and blurring the view of the wilting garden and the iron gates that to her looks like prison fences.

She isn’t even sure how long it has been she had been trapped in this godforsaken orphanage with an insane caretaker, maybe six, seven years? It doesn’t really matter. She forgets what she’s done for most days, things happen in a blur, a haze, but she comes back to her room everyday, bruised and battered, sometimes with ragged clothing and bleeding lips, and blood on her shirt that doesn’t seem to belong to her.

 

She doesn’t want to know what they’ve done to her, but most importantly, she doesn’t want to know what she did.

 

So, whenever she wakes up in the middle of the night by that recurring dream, she prays (that’s what the caretaker tells her to do - “Whenever you’re afraid Melody, pray. Pray to whoever you think is always going to looking after you, pray to whoever you trust with all your heart, pray to -” She doesn’t know how he finishes, because as she blinks, he’s gone, but his crazy, blown wide eyes burn into her memory. As crazy as he is, she sees the glimmer of truth and love for her at the back of his eyes and -

Besides, this is the _last time_ she had ever seen him.)

 

She kneels on her bed, her elbows on the windowsill and she closes her eyes and she prays.

She prays to whoever she knows is always looking for her, and will never stop, whatever it takes. She prays to the stranger who held her in his arms like he couldn’t quite believe she was real. She prays to the warrior who slayed hundreds of enemies to stop them from getting to her.

 

She prays to _him_.

 

The last centurion. Her father.

 

She smiles.


End file.
